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5 March 2017

Questioning the Future - As A Historical Paradox

The Fall of Globalism, the Rise of Populist Nationalism, & the Question of 'Global History'

It seems as though the world is
changing fast these days. It’s hard to keep up at times. There’s a lot of talk
about a new age of uncertainty. And it seems as though many people are trying
to gain some perspective on what is actually happening around us, but often
it’s hard to see the wood for the trees when you are in the midst of the
forest.

The internationalised future which
appeared to have dawned in the last decade of the twentieth century seemed to
presage an auspicious start to the new millennium. With the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989, borders were beginning to blur, barriers began to be replaced by
bridges – Europe was becoming more united with the establishment of the
Schengen zone and a common currency, the founding of the World Trade Organisation,
the economic rise of big countries such as China and India – globalism
seemed to have been given the green light. The dichotomy of the Cold War era
was now redundant, a new era of international harmony seemed a realistic
possibility. But then everything began to change, and the changes seemed
inconceivably contrary to all those optimistic expectations. Instead, the new century
began with the unprecedented horrific spectacle of the terrorist attacks on the
twin towers in New York in 2001, which in turn precipitated the ‘global’ war on
terror. A cultural dynamic had shifted dramatically, and today the
repercussions are still reverberating from this seismic shift.

Then there was the financial
meltdown of 2008. The pillars of the present world system suddenly seemed to be standing on
political and economic foundations which were (and still are) dissolving with
spectacular rapidity. Capitalism was in crisis. That optimistic new dawn, we
were now being told, had been replaced by a new ‘age of austerity.’ The global
financial downturn augured and helped to incubate a growing sense of
disenfranchisement and disillusion. The green grass of the future had yellowed
and dried to tinder. Hence the unexpected rise of popular nationalism seems to
have suddenly spread out of nowhere, like wildfire. One can’t help wondering if
this – our present time – is but the calm before the conflagration? Are we
about to watch our world burn as that former optimistic future seemingly goes
up in flames?

2016 may well come to be seen as a
momentous year for global history. With the precarious onset of Brexit (perhaps
for the EU as much as for the UK) in an uneasy near centre split of 52% versus
48%; the similarly narrow margin in the election of Donald Trump on a xenophobic
nationalist platform (the likes of which, some outlets have been quick to
tell us, ‘the West’ has not seen since the fall of the Weimar Republic) has
prompted a great deal of worried navel gazing in public discourse, with pundits
looking to history for similar precedents, and there by logical extension to
historians in an attempt to unfathom the all-too-often hasty conclusions which
some folks seem to be drawing from such history lessons. It is no wonder
historians are being asked to step up to the task. These days the zeitgeist is
ghastly. How often now do we read of the “lessons from history” being bandied
about as a favourite phrase of the moment in the press and media?

These are bewildering times to be
sure. And as someone currently enrolled on a programme of education with the
goal of becoming a professional historian, I’ve often found myself
contemplating the wider implications of such a career choice and the kind of
calling it represents for me personally. It poses questions to which I have no concrete
answers. All academics know that a perceptive question simply begets further
questioning, but as a discipline our collective historiography is based on the
process of asking and reflecting upon such questions. A recent article by
Jeremy Adelman in Aeon Essays ruminating
on the question: “What is global history
now?” has really sparked a diode in my mind and focussed my thoughts a
little further on this theme. It’s prompted me to ask myself again the question
which every historian should constantly be asking themselves: what kind of a historian am I?

Of one thing I am definitely
certain – I’m a global historian. And in reading Adelman’s article I find
myself concluding that a 'global history' perspective is still just as relevant now, if not moreso,
than it ever was before. My own field, the study of empire, is not a simple analysis
of historical determinism; its scope is far, far broader than that. If global
history is anything, it is pluralistic. It is as much about the local as it is
about the international. You can’t raise questions of imperialism without
invoking further questions about nationalism, there is no international without
the local – and neither can be mutually exclusive. Hence today’s socio-political
shift towards populist nationalism isn’t necessarily a retreat from the global,
instead it presents a different set of contradictions to the surface simplicity
that this same populist nationalism appears to champion. I, for one, think it is politically
short-sighted on the one hand, and on the other, it is disingenuously
calculating as a short-term tactic for taking and consolidating control. And clearly
it is working. This is happening.

Recently there’s been much talk in
the UK about the nostalgia for empire. There is this harking back to a halcyon
view of an untarnished past in which life was better at home in a country which
was outwardly confidant and strong, exporting its vision of a just and rational
modernity to a benighted and backwards wider world which naturally could only
benefit from such an advanced and enlightened benevolence. But many have been
pointing out that this is at best a false premise. The past was nowhere near so
clear cut, nor so black and white. The study of empire is in effect a study in
shades and nuances; it is an analysis of a greyscale of good to bad, benefit to
harm, boon friend to bogeyman (cf. Ferguson versus Mishra). Theresa May talks about making a post-Brexit
Britain a ‘global’ nation again – but
what does that mean?

Surely being an active member of an
international union such as the EU was a highly effective way of pursuing such
a globalised vision for greater international harmony? Then again, I’m well aware
that the same basis for such an arguement can be turned on its head and argued for precisely the
opposite. Hence the question: - is a globalised world of individual nation
states a more equitable base for a world system than one predicated on a
preference for international unions of similar socio-economic ‘friends’
operating in concert? – Some might say it depends on the size of both the
economy and the population of the nation state we are looking at. Think of the
Philippines and China currently at diplomatic loggerheads over mutually
disputed territories in the South China Sea. How can a small country vie with,
let alone have its voice heard and respected by a relative superpower? Not all
countries can “punch above their weight” as the oft-used trope of nationalist
nostalgia in Britain would have us believe we do here in the UK; it’s a phrase which
has so frequently characterised the rhetoric of British politicians since the
demise of this country’s empire; indeed, whatever their party colour, UK politicians
all seem to relish either cooing or crowing about this seemingly paradoxical
incongruity of a plucky little island nation retaining its seat at the top
table of global powers – history has denied many similarly small or even a fair
few bigger nation states such a chance to join this particular club.

But nationalism versus globalism is
the real question which Jeremy Adelman’s article set me thinking about. If the
recent trend towards globalism has resulted in an unexpectedly inward turn
towards parochial or populist nationalism, what follows on from that? – If such a
nationalist turn seeks to differentiate a new (or renewed) notion of “us and
them”, we have to wonder how such a polarisation is meant to take effect? Not
least because the previous trend towards globalism has prompted a greater transnational
social integration in so many countries. Many of our most economically
burgeoning and flourishing cities are booming precisely because they have become expressly international cities. If the
nationalists wish to categorically differentiate their “us” from ‘the other’
they can’t hope to do so on a macro, global level without precipitating doing
so on a local, micro level at home too; and so, such a policy would simply end
up being endemically fissiparous, or to put it another way, they’d in effect be throwing
the baby out with the bathwater – hence some people’s legitimate fear that the
implementation of such a policy would in effect equate to
pushing a self-destruct button.

But then again, this might well be the
intention ... Indeed, it follows that in the logical progression of such
nationalism – anyone perceived to be a foreigner, say because of their colour
or their creed, regardless of the fact that they were born in that same
country, were fully acculturated therein, and held official papers attesting to
their legitimate citizenship, perhaps even being several generations removed
from their original immigrant forebears, would count for nothing. They may well
end up being stigmatised as the enemy within, as indeed was the case with the Japanese in the USA after the attacks on Pearl Harbour, or worse with the
Jews within Nazi Germany and occupied Europe in the 1940s , or similarly with the 'ethnic cleansing' in Balkan nations
following the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Undoubtedly, though we might
well shudder to consider it, there is every possibility of similar things
occurring in exactly this way as the norms of civil society become increasing
corroded and eroded by a toxic and exclusionary insularity. I would argue that
the key question is not so much how this wave of populist nationalism has
arisen or whether history is in any sort of sense repeating itself, though
these are certainly important points to consider and debate; but rather, I
would venture to suggest that the key question of our time is whether the
dichotomy of this dilemma – globalism versus nationalism – is recalibrating and
accelerating a new kind of global schism?

In his article Adelman quotes a
deeply worrying statement about an imminent cultural collision of East and West
apparently made in 2014 by the current chief strategist in the White House,
Steve Bannon: “There is a major war
brewing, a war that’s already global. Every day that we refuse to look at this
as what it is, and the scale of it, and really the viciousness of it, will be a
day where you will rue that we didn’t act.” … Little hope then, perhaps, to
echo a famous phrase attributed to Winston Churchill, that “jaw, jaw” might be
allowed a chance to take precedence over “war, war.” But more essentially such
an overtly militarist stance in terms of the foreign policy of such an intrinsically
pluralistic nation does not look sufficiently deeply into the reality beneath
its nose on its very own doorstep. You cannot have a dualistic confrontation in
the form of a "clash of civilisations" when your own society is already one built upon an
integrated internationalist base, as this is in essence blindly self-destructive. The
fact that we are clearly so split right down the middle (vide the voting splits for the two opposing Brexit camps, or the
Presidential campaigns of Trump and Clinton), I think utterly precludes
it. Trying to purge a society of ‘the other’ from within its own midst today would
in the end be tantamount to instigating a civil war (think again of the 1990s Balkans War). Ours is no longer a world of near and far. The ‘global
village’ is real, we are all living it now, and we are all more closely
interconnected than ever before. Take Brexit and the issue of the current right of EU nationals to
permanent residence in the UK which has simply highlighted how deeply married
Britons are to the Continent, literally in the case of so many transnational
married couples who are currently facing the threat of dislocation.

And yet – in looking through this present glass darkly and attempting to envisage the potentially deeply dystopian future that may well now lie ahead of us: what if this
populist nationalism ultimately succeeds in its goal of disuniting the globe? – What will follow to police and maintain the new world order which will result
from this epic "clash of civilisations"? Will such resurgent nationalism
eventually beget a shift to a reinvented imperialism? Will it end in a new Cold
War-like stand-off between Crusader and Jihadi? Or will it require a new kind of colonialism? And if so, who will end up being subjugated, colonized,
exploited, and controlled as ‘the other’ in this nightmare vision of our
collective future – both at home and abroad? … The globe might well be up for grabs, but in my opinion,
taking my lesson from history – the outcome of the impeding tussle will be
anyone’s guess to call. But right now – it’s the moment when we stop asking
questions which worries me the most.

2 comments:

A lot I agree with here and for me it's something new even with its many echoes from the past.

Globalisation can't be put back into the box - would love to see people's reactions if it was suggested they should give up social media, apps, TV box sets etc! Overall globalisation is a positive force though everything has a downside. Unfortunately there are men like Steve Bannon who want to watch the world burn and have this simplistic view that events are cyclical and we are due a war so will into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then there are throwback global leaders and a wilful electorate who, rather than facing up to difficult questions about environment, job automation, big data, surveillance, globalised taxes, food sustainability, mass migration due to climate change etc, seem to lurch to right wing emotions that offer no solution at all to what’s coming down the track.

The EU is under serious pressure without Brexit so the curious thing is that we might all look back in years to come and say thank god Brexit happened. There is of course a case for Brexit, and you can vote for Brexit without being a racist patriot but unquestionably there are dark, ignorant forces and dodgy nationalism that swirls around it. As for Trump, Erdogan, Putin, Bannon, Farage et al...there are words – just not here!

Fascinating and depressing all at the same time. Our only reaction can be like the farmer who says “We’ll see” to every turn of events. At the same time we should resist dark forces as much as we can.

After all it requires many, many pints to figure it out...and there would still be no firm conclusion!

I think I'm almost out of words on all this ... There's so much odd stuff occurring seemingly as the net result of muddled-thinking happening on so many different levels, both big and small.

I'm not all rosy eyed about the EU, although I am firmly pro-Europe (as a couple of other posts on this blog previously will amply attest). All systems have their positives and negatives, but it's the sheerest knife-edge imbalance of all this which seems to be encouraging and impending such vast extremes which is blowing my mind.

I never thought I'd live to see the day all of this began to unravel and unfold like this. But I guess that's the point, the smallest of nudges can be all it takes to spin the world off its axis ...

What happens in the upcoming elections in France and the Netherlands will be key. And the break up of the UK if Scotland has a second referendum (as they've announced today) will necessitate an epochal change of mindsets all round.

Who knows what the fuck will happen ... But I know one thing - I'll definitely join you for that pint (or twenty)!